Cool Hand Luke (Warners, Blu)... One of the finest studio pictures of the 60's, Paul Newman plays the irrespressible world-shaker Lucas Jackson, sent down for 2 years hard labour at a Southern prison farm... Directed with considerable flair by Stuart Rosenberg, and featuring reams of quotable Southern dialogue, the film is one of
the great ensemble dramas - among the
mulletheaded cons look out Dennis Hopper, Luke Askew (
Easy Rider), Clifton James (
Man With the Golden Gun), Anthony Zerbe (
Omega Man), Warren Finnerty (
The Connection) and Joe Don Baker (
Walking Tall), and there's particularly fine work from Strother Martin as the Captain who bags one of the most famous lines in Cinema, an early appearance from Harry Dean Stanton who sings the blues, and career best performances from Paul Newman and George Kennedy who won a well deserved Oscar. Much has been made of the film's religious undertones, but Newman's existentialist hero is closer in spirit to Robert Duvall's THX-1138 and Jack Nicholson's Randle P. McMurphy, another loner rallying against the conformity of a soulless repressive soceity. Essential viewing.
